One fool, lots of movies

Business

It’s almost Summer, yay! For me, that doesn’t mean better weather because we remain in a yearly/monthly/daily state of grey, but for most people you get to head to the beach or eat ice cream naked or whack on the AC and take another few years off the planet’s future. But sure, it’s all good fun. It’s the time to take a break, to finish off your exams and give the middle finger to another year of school, and plan for an ill-advised holiday romance or finally get around to painting that damn fence. In Northern Ireland, we’re almost into what is referred to as ‘The Marching Season’. That means that a bunch of idiots take it upon themselves to essentially shut down every city, town, and village so that they can don ridiculous outfits, get pissed, and march through the streets beating drums and playing music that nobody has ever wanted to hear at apocalyptic levels of volume. Why? Tradition. And if anyone dares take it away from us – families, kids, schools, politicians, cops, military, then by God we are gonna to fuck shit up for the next three months, set fire to every shop or car within five miles, before complaining about foreigners taking our jobs or something. Why? Tradition.

I say ‘we’, but naturally I don’t include myself in such activities. Today’s post isn’t a lesson about the dumb tribalism and bullshit patriotism which diseases this patch of earth we just happened to have been born on, no, but I did intend today’s post to be some sort of cultural brochure. If there’s one thing we’re good at here, aside from needless murder and carnage, it’s self-deprecating humour. And so, I found some things on the internet which range from ‘sort of funny to me’, to ‘meh’, but maybe they’ll be interesting to people unfamiliar with or interested in Northern Ireland. I’ve no idea who wrote the list originally as it has been shared thousands of times in the past ten years. Now, there was 60 of these things, so I’m only going to post the first 20 and add my thoughts in red below each, sort of as an explanation. Have a read, and if anything is weird or if you want to ask me anything, I’m always lurking in the comments. Enjoy!

3. Castle Court – the traditional and best – is well better than that Victoria Square place.

Castle Court is a tiny shopping mall in Belfast City Centre. It is filled with Chav scum, steeks, and millbags. Victoria Square is a more upmarket and newer tiny shopping mall in the City Centre. It used to have a place to buy DVDs, but doesn’t anymore, so there is no reason for me to use it, other than as a shortcut to get to somewhere else.

4. You have owned a pair of Nike Air Max at some stage.

Can’t say I have.

5. You will fight anyone who claims Callum Best’s Da wasn’t the best footballer EVER.

I will fight anyone who claims he wasn’t an abusive drunk and played for the scum.

6. You’re passionate about an English or Scottish football team.

English yes, couldn’t care less about Scottish football (people in Northern Ireland traditionally only support Rangers (Protestant) or Celtic (Catholic). Northern Irish football is atrocious and I have no idea what the South is like. Scottish is like 2nd Division English.

7. You know what real rain is like.

I assume ‘real rain’ is something Belfast people say, but I’ve never heard it.

8. You think if you can’t see the Harland and Wolff cranes from your bedroom window you’re a culchie.

A culchie is a farmer/someone who lives in the countryside/someone who doesn’t live in Belfast. Harland and Wolff cranes are two huge yellow cranes you can see from basically anywhere in Belfast. They were not used in the building of The Titanic.

9. You remember when it was OK to smoke (anything) in the KFC in Corn Market.

Or any of the KFCs.

10. So it is

Nobody says ‘top of the morning’ or ‘begorah’ or any muck like that. Everyone says ‘so it is’. Not me though, I had an education.

11. You know what the word Ball root means.

We have many wonderful and colourful insults. This is one.

12. You use the word ‘sweet’ and ‘powerful’ as a substitute for almost any adjective.

Yes, you hear these most days. Powerful not so much, that always seemed like an auld boy or culchie thing to me.

13. You are a half decent pool player and know your way around a snooker table.

This is true.

14. You know what the words ‘space-cadet’ and ‘rocket’ really mean.

More insults. Except ‘rocket’ is usually pronounced ‘racket’.

15. Your friends still call you by your childhood nickname.

Yes, depending on when I knew the friend, if I see them today they will use that specific nickname. And so will I.

16. You cringe when you hear someone from your city speak on national TV.

Definitely. Our accents can be horrific. I quite like mine though.

17. You been told wha’ at least once in your life.

Ha ha. Ha.

18. You know at least one person called Mackers.

Yes. Yes I do.

19. Ballycastle is your most frequented holiday destination.

See, I never got this. Why would you go to Ballycastle when Portrush is close by? Then again, I rarely went to either as we had Kilkeel. Which is worse than both. I live near Ballycastle now.

20. Your Granny had a framed picture of the Pope or the Queen in the living room but not both.

No, none of my grandparents had this. Must be a Belfast thing.

Now you know a little more about Belfast and its people. Feel free to comment!

*Note – I wrote this post in January, well in advance of publishing. I had to stick that pic on at the top in place of the usual general blogging pic. YNWA!

Welcome to another month and another bunch of questions. Remember, if you have any random ass or interesting questions you’d like me to answer, chime in below. In May, I’m on a positivity kick, which is usually anathema to me, but it means you’ll see a lot more posts about things I enjoy rather than rants. For now, some Q&A that you can play along with.

What is one guilty pleasure you enjoy too much to give up?

I don’t really view any of my pleasures as guilty, though I imagine others would. I don’t know – eating sweets? I don’t believe anyone should feel guilty about enjoying anything as long as it isn’t hurting anyone.

How often do you read the newspaper? Which paper? Which sections?

Never. I never really have. In school I would sometimes check out the football pages. For a while I bought The Times, but only because they kept giving away free DVDs. Where papers and Ads are concerned, my mantra is the same – I don’t need to be told what to think. And I don’t really care enough about the world to know what people highlight as happening.

Which animals scare you most? Why?

Only spiders. But it’s not fear, it’s disgust. That’s what people without phobias don’t understand. It’s complete and utter revulsion – imagine if a tramp walked into your bedroom, took a shit on the floor and started pissing at your mouth. That’s what I feel when I see a spider. And yet, it’s only certain types – most types yes – but take the tarantula for example. I like those, I have no phobia for those. It’s the freakishly big house ones or other spindly ones, or those monstrosities in Australia. I understand there is no reason for it beyond some repressed caveman thing, but logic doesn’t come into the equation. What other animals are people scared of? Bugs? Snakes? I love them all. I’d love to swim with Great White Sharks and have a pet tiger. My wife is scared of birds…. anything that flies really.

Are you more likely to avoid conflict or engage it head-on?

Avoid it. Not because I’m scared (because I’m fairly positive I could destroy you with merely a look), but because I’m lazy and don’t care. I tend to never get into arguments online or IRL. I always hated debates in school, while in work discussions never become arguments because I’m either easily proven correct or not in a position to voice an opinion. There’s probably some cultural thing too. Brits, or more traditionally, the English are said to not argue and roll over in contrast to say, yanks. Generalizations of course. Coming from Northern Ireland, a backwater and ex- pseudo warzone, we have learned over many generations to keeps our mouths shut for fear of being usurped, having our villages burned, our children eaten, or kneecapped and car bombed. People seem to have this innate need to argue which I must have missed when evolution spat me out. I always laugh at atheists who spit venom at religious types (and vice versa). If it is ever conclusively proven that there is no God of any type, to the extent that even the most vehement religious zealot agrees – we’ll still find something else to argue over. Religious wars will simply shift to war of another kind. We love to fight and kill each other for absolutely no reason.

What is something about yourself that you hope will change, but probably never will?

The spider thing. Oh, and I’d be a kick-ass billionaire.

Are you a creature of habit? Explain.

We all are, even if we think we are not. I will say that I don’t like routine and actively go out of my way to do things differently. Having said that, I like doing my own stuff and not having other crap get in the way, and I’m not one of those self-advertising spontaneous quirky types. I’m just weird, plain and simple.

Are you high maintenance? Explain.

Assuming this means ‘difficult to put up/live with’ or spends too much time on their appearance. I don’t think I’m the first one, though you’d have to ask other people, and I’m definitely not the second. As I’ve explained before regarding the latter – I get up in the morning, throw on whatever clothes are lying on the floor, brush teeth, and leave the house. I think I’m very easy to live with. I mean, I’m pretty lazy when it comes to actually doing things around the house, but for most people I fade into the background quite easily. I’m a scentless breeze.

When was the last time you really pushed yourself to your physical limits?

Many years. I did snap my back last year which meant I couldn’t walk for six weeks and couldn’t move well for about five months. I used to do a lot of running and swimming and I had a manual labour part time job when I was in school so I used to be very fit. I never saw any of it as a challenge, personal or otherwise – something to do rather than something to achieve. As a result of all the old exercise, my joints are like polystyrene – when I run it hurts the bottom of my spine where I injured myself, so I can’t really do that anymore. I try to cycle now instead and I’m getting back into yoga, but I don’t think I’m pushing myself. Maybe I should.

Do you have a whole lot of acquaintances or just a few very close friends? Why?

Both. But I’m crap at making the effort to keep in touch with people, so I guess my circle of close friends is much smaller than it used to be. Plus I have all you lovely online lads and ladies.

Are you more inclined to “build your own empire” or unleash the potential of others?

Empire, of course. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. Build your Empire and then use it to unleash the potential of others.

That’s enough nonsense for today. Be sure to add your answers in the comments below, and as always, feel free to ask me any additional or alternative question!

Reminder on blog links:

A-Z Reviews: This category is a single post with links to all my movie, music, and book reviews. It’s the best place to start and you can check it via THIS LINK. I try to update it regularly.

Amazon Vine: I’m a member of Amazon Vine, a program where Amazon’s best reviewers are provided with free products for reviewing purposes in order to drum up publicity before the product is released to the general public. You can find links to the Products I have received here.

Book Reviews: Something I don’t really do anymore, even though I still read plenty. I need to get back into this, but movies are so much easier to review. Maybe I’ll come up with a different format.

Blogging: A new category! This is where I’m going to put this exact post, and the others like it to follow.

Changing The Past: This category is where I go back through every Oscars since 1960 and pick my winners from almost every category. I pick my winners from the official choices, and then I add my own personal list of who I feel should have been nominated. It’s based on personal preference, but it’s also not based on any of the usual Academy political nonsense and I bypass most of their archaic rules. It’s not quite me just picking my favourite films, but it’s close.

DVD Reviews: I should probably just change this to Movie Reviews. It’s what you would expect – reviews of the movies I’ve watched. I’m not a big fan of reviewing every new film which comes out – there are a billion other blogs out there all doing the same thing. I don’t often watch new movies as they release, unless they’re streaming, so instead you’ll be getting reviews of those films a few years later, once I get around to them. Here you will find horror, actions, classics, foreign, indie, sci-fi, comedy, drama – everything. A word of warning – I frequently post reviews that I wrote almost twenty years ago when I didn’t have a clue – they’re crap, but I add them here in all of their badly written glory.

Essential Movies: I’ve only published an intro post for this category, but I have written some other posts for the future. I’m basically questioning what actually makes a film Essential, because it cannot be a definitive statement. What’s essential for you, may not be for me, so I’ve broken down the definition into a few generic user types, then gone through some lists of the best movies of each year to see which ones are essential for each viewer. It’s pretty boring, and I already regret starting it, but that’s me.

Foreign Cinema Introduction: This category hasn’t been published yet, but once again it exists and I’ve written a bunch of posts for the future. The idea came from my many years of hearing people I know IRL or on the internet dismissing anything not mass-produced by Hollywood. If you only watch movies made in the USA – you’re not a movie fan, it’s as simple as that. I follow a few Facebook fan pages and blogs on WordPress which completely dismiss foreign movies – it’s ridiculous as you are missing out on many of the best films ever made. More than that, you are missing out on films which I know for a fact you will adore. So, this is me breaking down all that bullshit about subtitles, about foreign stuff being boring and every other excuse you’ve ever heard, while giving some very basic thoughts and introductions of the various countries of the world from a film perspective.

Lists: Here I post lists – some with comments, some without. All sorts of lists – from monthly previews of the year’s upcoming movies, to my favourite movies by actor or director, to best horror anthologies, best Christmas songs and TV shows, best movies for Halloween, my favourite episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, my ranking of Bond movies, songs, and girls, my favourite albums by decade, my favourite songs by artist, bands I’ve seen live etc. I love lists.

Manic Street Preachers Song By Song: One of the first reasons I started this blog was to try to spread the Gospel of my favourite band, especially as they are not well known outside of Britain. Defo not in the US. Then I found out there were other blogs doing it too. Ah well. These are my thoughts on each song. Don’t know them? They are a Welsh rock band who have been around since the late 80s, early 90s. They are highly political and intelligent, on the left wing, and they are probably the finest lyricists in the world. Their main lyricist suffered from various addictions and mental health issues and disappeared in 1995 – although there have been sightings, nobody has ever confirmed they have seen him and no body has ever been found, though the band, fans, and family are still looking. After three albums with him, they suddenly became commercially successful after his disappearance. If you like rock music… if you like music in general, please give them a try.

Music Reviews: This is the same as movies, except for music. Reviews of albums I’ve always loved, as reviews of albums as I’m listening as a virgin. I take a look at the Top Ten UK Charts from a random month in each year and review each song, while giving my own alternative ten songs from the same year, I am reviewing albums that I’ve never heard by artists I am familiar with – filling the gaps in those discographies. I’m listening to spin-offs of my favourite bands, I’m reviewing the Disney soundtracks. I was a metal and grunge kid, but also had a love for the best in 80 pop when I was young, so I like to listen to anything though since around the mid-noughties chart music has gone from extremely bad to entirely worthless.

I devised two scoring systems – one for movies and one for music. To use it, you have to follow the guidelines and be honest. If you’re not honest, it will be obvious, and your review won’t be valid. For both music and and movies, I break down the scoring into twenty different categories of equal weighting – out of five, for a total out of 100. Categories include acting, directing, sales; or for music – charts, influence, musical ability etc. Say you hate the Marvel movies or The Beatles. You can’t score them a 1 out of five in the Sales category because both of those were factually monster hits – they can really only be 5 out of five. In other words, some of what is opinion and bias is removed from the equation. In the same vein, the disparity between critics and audiences is reduced – typically you may think that a movie or music critic care more about how arty or original or influential something is, while the audience might care how many boobs are seen or how catchy the melody is. I’m making sweeping assumptions – but you get the idea – each category is equally weighted so that influence is only worth five points, chart performance is only worth five points, directing, advertising, whatever – each is five points. I’d love to see people use this, and I’d love to run an experiment where a group of people each use the system to score the same thing, and see how similar or different the results are. I’m positive the average would be a more true reflection than anything on RT or IMDB or anywhere else. The only issue with it is, it’s more suited to scoring once something has been out there for a while rather than a pre-release or first week review.

Nightman’s Favourite Films By Year: Self-explanatory. I list my favourite ten films from every year since 1950, with no comment. Then I give a list of my top films from each decade once I’ve done each year, but this time share some comments. There’s also some stats in there, such as how many films I picked which were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, which were top ten grossing movies etc.

The Shrine: People die. Famous people die. But they live on, in our hearts and minds and in the work they left behind. Here I offer the chance to remember and offer thanks.

The Spac Hole: Each Monday I post a random lyric from a random song. Every so often I write something which doesn’t fit in any other category. Usually it’s weird. That stuff all goes here. There are more semi-regular pieces like those posts where I use Google translate to change the lyrics of (s)hit songs or dreadful imaginings like what I would do if I owned my own Cinema.

The Spac Reviews: Carlos Nightman is my alter ego. Derek Carpet is his alter ego. He is an idiot. He likes movies. These are his reviews. They are…. different.

TV Reviews: I sometimes review TV too. I talk about my current shows and my all time favourites.

Unpublished Screenplays: Derek Carpet sometimes likes to pretend he’s a writer too. Here are some of his original works, based on other movies and TV shows.

Videogame Reviews: I do these sometimes too. Usually retro. Usually with a humourous bent.

Walk Of Fame: Hollywood has a Walk Of Fame. I have one too. Mine’s better, except I don’t update it anymore. Not only do my inductees get a star, but they get a statue too! And, in each post one lucky soul gets a special building concerning their work or life dedicated to them!

As promised, this month I’m going to do a few of my own questions or answers. Some generic, some ZANY! Many of these probably come up in that ‘Complete Questions’ book I mentioned last month, but that’s fine. I’ve probably mentioned a lot of these before too, in other posts. Before that, March is going to be Movie month here at The Spac Hole, so fewer music posts and more movie reviews.

One thing I enjoy doing currently is watching various Youtubers react to my favourite stuff. This mainly falls into two categories – people watching Buffy for the first time and rap fans listening to metal for the first time. I don’t like reactors who simply watch shows and don’t give any real thoughts or commentary, and I don’t like reactors who simply listen to a song and gawp open mouthed at how good it is – it seems (is) false. I want to hear why you like or don’t like something. I don’t want to look at your face. I’d like to see more people (any people) react to Twin Peaks. The problem with these reactors is they all react to the same shows. Carve your own niche.

I like Pewdiepie. You seem like a great guy, tell me something random.

Wha, Pewdi – I like literally low-key can’t even. Please reevaluate your life and make better decisions. Anyway, one thing I’ve noticed about myself IRL is that some people have a habit of becoming very attached to me (through no choice of my own) but then that connection gradually evaporates. I don’t mean like a regular friendship which fades over time or that gets rekindled every so often. It’s like an instant infatuation, like finding your new favourite TV show that you obsess over for a year and tell all your friends about, but then by the time the third season comes along you’ve kind of given up on it even though it hasn’t changed. I think people see something in me and suck it dry (matron). I don’t mean that to sound harsh or condescending to them or myself – it’s just the way it is. I become central and important in their lives, and then I become nothing. It doesn’t really matter how I feel about it all. I notice it now when it’s starting to happen, and sometimes I push it away or go out of my way to try to not let it happen. It sucks when someone becomes important in your life and then later you either never see them again, or when you do see them it’s like all the good stuff never happened. I didn’t quite mean that to sound so melodramatic and cliched… that’s not quite what I’m going for here.

Yeah? Dry your eyes. I’m getting bored now, and you kinda weirded me out with that. What I really want to know is wh-

One thing I used to love doing when I was younger was creating my own football tournaments with playing cards. Yes, I created entire histories and back stories for playing cards. My team was the King Of Diamonds. I would roll up tiny pieces of paper – the best was the foil from inside Soft Mints/Soft Fruits sweet wrappers, and using them as a football. I would have season long leagues and cups with these cards, recording every result and seeing who won at the end. I would set up goals in my bedroom and have a match between two playing cards. Each card would have two shots on goal, so the maximum any team could score was two. One would get two chances at scoring, while the other card acted as goalie. Then they would swap. In cup competitions if it ended in a draw, it would go to sudden death penalties. I started expanding it from playing cards to other card sets that I owned – Warhammer’s Citadel Playing Cards, Top Trumps, Nintendo character cards I got free from magazines, they all had their own leagues etc, then the best from each would qualify at the end for a World Cup type tournament. I loved it.

O…k… I think I’m going to go now…

Wuh… wait. come back! Oh. Aww. Ah well. Another month, and another reason for everyone to back slowly away from me and my blog. Come on, I’m spilling the beans, so how about you? What embarrassing stuff do you do now which provides no value other than entertaining yourself. What about when you were young? I don’t know you and you don’t know me, so it doesn’t matter if we share these secrets. Maybe it’ll make you feel better – though it will almost certainly make you feel considerably worse. Toodles!

Reminder on blog links:

A-Z Reviews: This category is a single post with links to all my movie, music, and book reviews. It’s the best place to start and you can check it via THIS LINK. I try to update it regularly.

Amazon Vine: I’m a member of Amazon Vine, a program where Amazon’s best reviewers are provided with free products for reviewing purposes in order to drum up publicity before the product is released to the general public. You can find links to the Products I have received here.

Book Reviews: Something I don’t really do anymore, even though I still read plenty. I need to get back into this, but movies are so much easier to review. Maybe I’ll come up with a different format.

Blogging: A new category! This is where I’m going to put this exact post, and the others like it to follow.

Changing The Past: This category is where I go back through every Oscars since 1960 and pick my winners from almost every category. I pick my winners from the official choices, and then I add my own personal list of who I feel should have been nominated. It’s based on personal preference, but it’s also not based on any of the usual Academy political nonsense and I bypass most of their archaic rules. It’s not quite me just picking my favourite films, but it’s close.

DVD Reviews: I should probably just change this to Movie Reviews. It’s what you would expect – reviews of the movies I’ve watched. I’m not a big fan of reviewing every new film which comes out – there are a billion other blogs out there all doing the same thing. I don’t often watch new movies as they release, unless they’re streaming, so instead you’ll be getting reviews of those films a few years later, once I get around to them. Here you will find horror, actions, classics, foreign, indie, sci-fi, comedy, drama – everything. A word of warning – I frequently post reviews that I wrote almost twenty years ago when I didn’t have a clue – they’re crap, but I add them here in all of their badly written glory.

Essential Movies: I’ve only published an intro post for this category, but I have written some other posts for the future. I’m basically questioning what actually makes a film Essential, because it cannot be a definitive statement. What’s essential for you, may not be for me, so I’ve broken down the defintion into a few generic user types, then gone through some lists of the best movies of each year to see which ones are essential for each viewer. It’s pretty boring, and I already regret starting it, but that’s me.

Foreign Cinema Introduction: This category hasn’t been published yet, but once again it exists and I’ve written a bunch of posts for the future. The idea came from my many years of hearing people I know IRL or on the internet dismissing anything not mass-produced by Hollywood. If you only watch movies made in the USA – you’re not a movie fan, it’s as simple as that. I follow a few Facebook fan pages and blogs on WordPress which completely dismiss foreign movies – it’s ridiculous as you are missing out on many of the best films ever made. More than that, you are missing out on films which I know for a fact you will adore. So, this is me breaking down all that bullshit about subtitles, about foreign stuff being boring and every other excuse you’ve ever heard, while giving some very basic thoughts and introductions of the various countries of the world from a film perspective.

Lists: Here I post lists – some with comments, some without. All sorts of lists – from monthly previews of the year’s upcoming movies, to my favourite movies by actor or director, to best horror anthologies, best Christmas songs and TV shows, best movies for Halloween, my favourite episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, my ranking of Bond movies, songs, and girls, my favourite albums by decade, my favourite songs by artist, bands I’ve seen live etc. I love lists.

Manic Street Preachers Song By Song: One of the first reasons I started this blog was to try to spread the Gospel of my favourite band, especially as they are not well known outside of Britain. Defo not in the US. Then I found out there were other blogs doing it too. Ah well. These are my thoughts on each song. Don’t know them? They are a Welsh rock band who have been around since the late 80s, early 90s. They are highly political and intelligent, on the left wing, and they are probably the finest lyricists in the world. Their main lyricist suffered from various addictions and mental health issues and disappeared in 1995 – although there have been sightings, nobody has ever confirmed they have seen him and no body has ever been found, though the band, fans, and family are still looking. After three albums with him, they suddenly became commercially successful after his disappearance. If you like rock music… if you like music in general, please give them a try.

Music Reviews: This is the same as movies, except for music. Reviews of albums I’ve always loved, as reviews of albums as I’m listening as a virgin. I take a look at the Top Ten UK Charts from a random month in each year and review each song, while giving my own alternative ten songs from the same year, I am reviewing albums that I’ve never heard by artists I am familiar with – filling the gaps in those discographies. I’m listening to spin-offs of my favourite bands, I’m reviewing the Disney soundtracks. I was a metal and grunge kid, but also had a love for the best in 80 pop when I was young, so I like to listen to anything though since around the mid-noughties chart music has gone from extremely bad to entirely worthless.

I devised two scoring systems – one for movies and one for music. To use it, you have to follow the guidelines and be honest. If you’re not honest, it will be obvious, and your review won’t be valid. For both music and and movies, I break down the scoring into twenty different categories of equal weighting – out of five, for a total out of 100. Categories include acting, directing, sales; or for music – charts, influence, musical ability etc. Say you hate the Marvel movies or The Beatles. You can’t score them a 1 out of five in the Sales category because both of those were factually monster hits – they can really only be 5 out of five. In other words, some of what is opinion and bias is removed from the equation. In the same vein, the disparity between critics and audiences is reduced – typically you may think that a movie or music critic care more about how arty or original or influential something is, while the audience might care how many boobs are seen or how catchy the melody is. I’m making sweeping assumptions – but you get the idea – each category is equally weighted so that influence is only worth five points, chart performance is only worth five points, directing, advertising, whatever – each is five points. I’d love to see people use this, and I’d love to run an experiment where a group of people each use the system to score the same thing, and see how similar or different the results are. I’m positive the average would be a more true reflection than anything on RT or IMDB or anywhere else. The only issue with it is, it’s more suited to scoring once something has been out there for a while rather than a pre-release or first week review.

Nightman’s Favourite Films By Year: Self-explanatory. I list my favourite ten films from every year since 1950, with no comment. Then I give a list of my top films from each decade once I’ve done each year, but this time share some comments. There’s also some stats in there, such as how many films I picked which were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, which were top ten grossing movies etc.

The Shrine: People die. Famous people die. But they live on, in our hearts and minds and in the work they left behind. Here I offer the chance to remember and offer thanks.

The Spac Hole: Each Monday I post a random lyric from a random song. Every so often I write something which doesn’t fit in any other category. Usually it’s weird. That stuff all goes here. There are more semi-regular pieces like those posts where I use Google translate to change the lyrics of (s)hit songs or dreadful imaginings like what I would do if I owned my own Cinema.

The Spac Reviews: Carlos Nightman is my alter ego. Derek Carpet is his alter ego. He is an idiot. He likes movies. These are his reviews. They are…. different.

TV Reviews: I sometimes review TV too. I talk about my current shows and my all time favourites.

Unpublished Screenplays: Derek Carpet sometimes likes to pretend he’s a writer too. Here are some of his original works, based on other movies and TV shows.

Videogame Reviews: I do these sometimes too. Usually retro. Usually with a humourous bent.

Walk Of Fame: Hollywood has a Walk Of Fame. I have one too. Mine’s better, except I don’t update it anymore. Not only do my inductees get a star, but they get a statue too! And, in each post one lucky soul gets a special building concerning their work or life dedicated to them!

Look! Look at this! I’m being all regular, and I haven’t even eaten any brown bread this week! Poo jokes aside, welcome back to my monthly post about Gawd knows what. As a heads-up, I’ll try to post more music related stuff this month – I have a bunch of posts written this time last year which I haven’t published yet, so expect more of my thoughts on Bowie, Madonna, Bon Jovi, Roxette, Chart Music from various years, and maybe a couple from the Top 1000 Series.

So, I was looking for a list of questions to introduce myself on my blog (even though I’ve been at it for nearly a decade) when I found this site about ‘the three questions who need to ask yourself’ about why your blog isn’t successful – you know, typical click-bait stuff. Not being interested in making money off this thing or worrying whether I get nineteen or nine hundred views a day (I’ve had both), I clicked on it anyway to see what angle the article took. It was about making readers subscribe rather than just visit once, and their number one key to success for this was making sure that the viewer knew what your blog was about at first glance. Makes sense – if it’s a movie blog, give it a movie related title and drown it in movie pics, right? Naturally being obtuse, my blog name doesn’t make sense and it goes out of its way to not be about anything. That says almost everything you need to know about me. Regardless – lets get on to some random questions about me!

Note – before looking, I have a feeling what these questions are going to be like, so next month I’ll probably devise some questions myself. I’m shamelessly nicking these questions from other blogs, so don’t @ me. I don’t know what that means.

Note part deux – a simple Google search uncovered a book called ‘The Complete Book Of Questions’ by Garry Poole. I might dip into that too and answer a few every month. Enough talk, question me up!

What are your nicknames? What do you prefer to be called?

Well, truth be told, my actual name is not Carlos Nightman. Shocker, right? I don’t know of too many (any) people named Carlos from Northern Ireland. That’s where I’m from, by the way. I don’t have an Irish sounding name either, so no Paddy McSpud here. I’ve had a variety of nicknames over the years – Nightman of course, Sonic, Pandy, Appleskin, Skin, Droid, etc, but the one which sticks most is Mal. It’s Latin for evil, and I did Latin in school for seven years. What do I prefer to be called? I have no preference… names are silly.

2. What books on your shelf are begging to be read?

Can books beg? A brief glance at the shelf behind where I’m typing this contains an Arnold Schwarzenegger biography, a Bruce Dickinson biography, a few recent Stephen King and Anne Rice novels, some oldies by Clive Barker which I haven’t started yet, a couple of volumes from The Black Library, Joe Hill, Fever by Deon Meyer, Madness Is Better Than Defeat by Ned Beauman, From The Fatherland With Love by Ryu Murakami, and South Of The Border by Haruki Murakami. My neck is getting sore twisting to see the shelf, so that’s enough. I’ll get to them all, no preference as to what comes next. Oh yeah, there’s a tonne of Buffy books too – those semi-official tie-ins. I started buying those second hand from Belfast’s charity shops, haven’t read any yet but they’re probably terrible.

3. How often do you doodle?

Never. I’m not a child.

4. What do you do if you can’t sleep at night? Do you count sheep? Toss and Turn? Try to get up and do something productive?

I’ve always had trouble sleeping. That’s not entirely accurate. It’s getting to sleep in the first place that’s the problem, ever since I was a young child, and it’s never gone away. When I was older I used to leave the house and walk around the streets and town at night and enjoy the peace. There’s something about lying down and not being able to sleep which causes dark and troubling thoughts to well up inside and envelop you, but walking around seems to free my mind and push that crap away. My mattress is uncomfortable at the moment so I get sore if I stay away for too long. My wife is usually asleep within 1 minute of turning her lamp off, which is something I cannot fathom. I’ll be tired all day, but as soon as it hits 10pm, become startlingly awake. Nowadays I can’t really get up, because I’ll wake everyone else and the cat will want fed. I just force myself to sleep, but try to read or watch something till I can’t keep my eyes open – doesn’t always work because I want to keep reading/watching.

5. How many days could you last in solitary confinement? How would you do it?

Are you kidding. When I was younger, this was my dream. My ideal world had no-one else in it. Or maybe a handful of people I liked. Of course now I have my own family. I could happily be with them and never see anyone else. Before them, I could easily go indefinitely without speaking to or seeing another human. I go out of my way to avoid most people in person – not because I don’t like them, or I’m shy, or awkward or anything, more because I prefer it that way and I like to do my own stuff without being interrupted. So in this fantasy scenario, if I was placed in solitary confinement I would probably thrive and create a cure for, I don’t know, world hunger or Aids or reality television.

6. Do you save old greeting cards and letters? Throw them away?

I used to, but now I don’t care as much. I keep some which mean something to me. I’m 35 at the time of writing, so I left school 17 years ago. School crushes and funny shit from then… I keep a few of those cards. I used to physically write out text messages and emails from those days. Cards now, like Christmas and Birthdays etc. I’d rather people didn’t waste the paper and money. I keep the Birthday cards my kids get, some day they might want to see them again.

7. Who is the biggest pack rat you know?

I have absolutely no idea what this means. What is a pack rat? Is this a political thing or something about someone you don’t like?

8. When making an entrance in to a party, do you make your presence known? Do you slip in and look for someone you know? Do you sneak in quietly and find a safe spot to roost?

These are very American questions. This is Northern Ireland (bitch), we don’t do parties. These questions are very much catered towards the cutesy little creative wallflower so that they can tell us all how precious and offbeat they are. Having said that, I’ve never been big on social gatherings, again because I’d rather do my own thing. I don’t have much interest in meeting new people or doing whatever people are supposed to do. I’d much rather be in the pub or house with people I already like. I’d need to go back to University for examples of me turning up at what this question refers to. I have a thing about never being late, so I’m usually there early or exactly on time. I wouldn’t be going to a party if I didn’t know someone there. There is no sneaking or looking for safe spots. I go in. I drink. I talk. I sleep on the floor. I go home the next day. Sometimes there are shrooms and scarecrows.

9. What is your strongest sense? If you had to give one up, which would it be?

Assuming you’re talking about the big five, not my sense that a ninja could be about to attack at any moment? I wear glasses because I’m short-sighted, but I’m really good at seeing things which people miss. Like, I’ll be the first to find a cat in a crowded street, or I notice little things or details which others miss. I do have very good hearing though. For example, we’ll be watching TV at night with the doors closed, maybe people are talking, and I’ll know someone is coming to the door because I’ll hear a car door closing at the bottom of the drive. This is a great trick and people are frequently, genuinely amazed by it. Can’t give up hearing or sight or touch… though being able to live without physical pain would be great. Taste I could live without I guess, but it’s got to be smell. People say it’s the best sense for memory, but that’s complete balls. You know what the best sense for memories is? Remembering.

10. How many times a day do you look at yourself in the mirror?

Almost never. I should shave every day, but I usually do it once a week. So I check then. I brush my teeth away from the bathroom, I never do anything to my hair, I don’t wear make-up, I wear whatever is lying on the floor. I have absolutely no reason to look in the mirror.

That should do for now. Feel free to answer these questions yourself and slap them in the comments. Now you know me a little more, hopefully I haven’t scared anyone off. I know I come across as a dick when answering these things, but really, you’d love me if you met me.

Reminder on blog links:

A-Z Reviews: This category is a single post with links to all my movie, music, and book reviews. It’s the best place to start and you can check it via THIS LINK. I try to update it regularly.

Amazon Vine: I’m a member of Amazon Vine, a program where Amazon’s best reviewers are provided with free products for reviewing purposes in order to drum up publicity before the product is released to the general public. You can find links to the Products I have received here.

Book Reviews: Something I don’t really do anymore, even though I still read plenty. I need to get back into this, but movies are so much easier to review. Maybe I’ll come up with a different format.

Blogging: A new category! This is where I’m going to put this exact post, and the others like it to follow.

Changing The Past: This category is where I go back through every Oscars since 1960 and pick my winners from almost every category. I pick my winners from the official choices, and then I add my own personal list of who I feel should have been nominated. It’s based on personal preference, but it’s also not based on any of the usual Academy political nonsense and I bypass most of their archaic rules. It’s not quite me just picking my favourite films, but it’s close.

DVD Reviews: I should probably just change this to Movie Reviews. It’s what you would expect – reviews of the movies I’ve watched. I’m not a big fan of reviewing every new film which comes out – there are a billion other blogs out there all doing the same thing. I don’t often watch new movies as they release, unless they’re streaming, so instead you’ll be getting reviews of those films a few years later, once I get around to them. Here you will find horror, actions, classics, foreign, indie, sci-fi, comedy, drama – everything. A word of warning – I frequently post reviews that I wrote almost twenty years ago when I didn’t have a clue – they’re crap, but I add them here in all of their badly written glory.

Essential Movies: I’ve only published an intro post for this category, but I have written some other posts for the future. I’m basically questioning what actually makes a film Essential, because it cannot be a definitive statement. What’s essential for you, may not be for me, so I’ve broken down the defintion into a few generic user types, then gone through some lists of the best movies of each year to see which ones are essential for each viewer. It’s pretty boring, and I already regret starting it, but that’s me.

Foreign Cinema Introduction: This category hasn’t been published yet, but once again it exists and I’ve written a bunch of posts for the future. The idea came from my many years of hearing people I know IRL or on the internet dismissing anything not mass-produced by Hollywood. If you only watch movies made in the USA – you’re not a movie fan, it’s as simple as that. I follow a few Facebook fan pages and blogs on WordPress which completely dismiss foreign movies – it’s ridiculous as you are missing out on many of the best films ever made. More than that, you are missing out on films which I know for a fact you will adore. So, this is me breaking down all that bullshit about subtitles, about foreign stuff being boring and every other excuse you’ve ever heard, while giving some very basic thoughts and introductions of the various countries of the world from a film perspective.

Lists: Here I post lists – some with comments, some without. All sorts of lists – from monthly previews of the year’s upcoming movies, to my favourite movies by actor or director, to best horror anthologies, best Christmas songs and TV shows, best movies for Halloween, my favourite episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, my ranking of Bond movies, songs, and girls, my favourite albums by decade, my favourite songs by artist, bands I’ve seen live etc. I love lists.

Manic Street Preachers Song By Song: One of the first reasons I started this blog was to try to spread the Gospel of my favourite band, especially as they are not well known outside of Britain. Defo not in the US. Then I found out there were other blogs doing it too. Ah well. These are my thoughts on each song. Don’t know them? They are a Welsh rock band who have been around since the late 80s, early 90s. They are highly political and intelligent, on the left wing, and they are probably the finest lyricists in the world. Their main lyricist suffered from various addictions and mental health issues and disappeared in 1995 – although there have been sightings, nobody has ever confirmed they have seen him and no body has ever been found, though the band, fans, and family are still looking. After three albums with him, they suddenly became commercially successful after his disappearance. If you like rock music… if you like music in general, please give them a try.

Music Reviews: This is the same as movies, except for music. Reviews of albums I’ve always loved, as reviews of albums as I’m listening as a virgin. I take a look at the Top Ten UK Charts from a random month in each year and review each song, while giving my own alternative ten songs from the same year, I am reviewing albums that I’ve never heard by artists I am familiar with – filling the gaps in those discographies. I’m listening to spin-offs of my favourite bands, I’m reviewing the Disney soundtracks. I was a metal and grunge kid, but also had a love for the best in 80 pop when I was young, so I like to listen to anything though since around the mid-noughties chart music has gone from extremely bad to entirely worthless.

I devised two scoring systems – one for movies and one for music. To use it, you have to follow the guidelines and be honest. If you’re not honest, it will be obvious, and your review won’t be valid. For both music and and movies, I break down the scoring into twenty different categories of equal weighting – out of five, for a total out of 100. Categories include acting, directing, sales; or for music – charts, influence, musical ability etc. Say you hate the Marvel movies or The Beatles. You can’t score them a 1 out of five in the Sales category because both of those were factually monster hits – they can really only be 5 out of five. In other words, some of what is opinion and bias is removed from the equation. In the same vein, the disparity between critics and audiences is reduced – typically you may think that a movie or music critic care more about how arty or original or influential something is, while the audience might care how many boobs are seen or how catchy the melody is. I’m making sweeping assumptions – but you get the idea – each category is equally weighted so that influence is only worth five points, chart performance is only worth five points, directing, advertising, whatever – each is five points. I’d love to see people use this, and I’d love to run an experiment where a group of people each use the system to score the same thing, and see how similar or different the results are. I’m positive the average would be a more true reflection than anything on RT or IMDB or anywhere else. The only issue with it is, it’s more suited to scoring once something has been out there for a while rather than a pre-release or first week review.

Nightman’s Favourite Films By Year: Self-explanatory. I list my favourite ten films from every year since 1950, with no comment. Then I give a list of my top films from each decade once I’ve done each year, but this time share some comments. There’s also some stats in there, such as how many films I picked which were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, which were top ten grossing movies etc.

The Shrine: People die. Famous people die. But they live on, in our hearts and minds and in the work they left behind. Here I offer the chance to remember and offer thanks.

The Spac Hole: Each Monday I post a random lyric from a random song. Every so often I write something which doesn’t fit in any other category. Usually it’s weird. That stuff all goes here. There are more semi-regular pieces like those posts where I use Google translate to change the lyrics of (s)hit songs or dreadful imaginings like what I would do if I owned my own Cinema.

The Spac Reviews: Carlos Nightman is my alter ego. Derek Carpet is his alter ego. He is an idiot. He likes movies. These are his reviews. They are…. different.

TV Reviews: I sometimes review TV too. I talk about my current shows and my all time favourites.

Unpublished Screenplays: Derek Carpet sometimes likes to pretend he’s a writer too. Here are some of his original works, based on other movies and TV shows.

Videogame Reviews: I do these sometimes too. Usually retro. Usually with a humourous bent.

Walk Of Fame: Hollywood has a Walk Of Fame. I have one too. Mine’s better, except I don’t update it anymore. Not only do my inductees get a star, but they get a statue too! And, in each post one lucky soul gets a special building concerning their work or life dedicated to them!

As a fan of the more extreme side of cinema, I ask you to join me, as I explore the history of Cinema's most extreme movies with all the sex, violence and symbolism intact. I'm here to reflect on the extreme movies that have come and gone to see what they mean, see what makes them so extreme, and of course, see if they're any good.